


The Funeral Party

by murderousfiligree



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-05
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-03-05 15:19:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,623
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3125015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderousfiligree/pseuds/murderousfiligree
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kira Nerys and Jadzia Dax are investigating the disappearance of Idran II. The reason for the planet’s absence is more extraordinary than either could have imagined.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Funeral Party

**Author's Note:**

> I'm aware that Bajoran first names are surnames, but it feels odd referring to Kira as "Nerys" in this context. Kira seems to use her surname more than other characters, so I use it here intentionally.

      "Well, what is it?" 

      Jadzia furrowed her brow, turning from the runabout's console. "What's what?" 

      "What is it you've been dying to tell me since we left the station?" Kira said, tone laced with exasperation. "You've been looking at me and smiling to yourself and it hasn't been subtle." 

      They had cleared the wormhole almost a half hour ago and were travelling at a leisurely warp two. Stars flooded the viewscreen, rushing by at superluminal speeds; they looked somehow stranger in the Gamma quadrant, unexplored and inexplicable. 

      "I can't," Jadzia sighed, returning her attention to the console. "I promised Julian I wouldn't tell anyone." 

      Kira leaned forward, resting her chin on her hands. "Then why do I get the feeling you're going to tell me anyway?"

      Jadzia’s mouth twitched. Her hands hovered motionless over the controls before settling in her lap. “Well,” she began, “it isn’t as if half the station doesn’t already know. I don’t see how Garak expects to keep it a secret.”

      “Garak? What’s Garak got to do with…” But it dawned on her before she finished the thought. “No.”

      “Yes!” Jadzia beamed.

      “I always knew there was _something_ between them but I never thought...” Kira shook her head. “Of all the people on the station why’d it have to be _Garak_?”

      Jadzia shrugged. “I’ll admit he’s rough around the edges, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen Julian so happy.”

      “ _Rough_ around the _edges_?” Kira narrowly restrained herself from listing all of Elim Garak’s plentiful unscrupulous qualities. Her arms were crossed, her lips drawn tight; she recalled Ghemor’s warning, the urgency in his tone: _don’t trust him Nerys, ever_.

      “I can’t imagine this ending well,” she said after a pause. “I mean, this is _Garak_ we’re talking about. You’re sure he doesn’t have some…” she hesitated, “…ulterior motive?”

      Jadzia raised her eyebrows. “I think his motives are fairly obvious, at least when it comes to Julian. Surely you’ve seen them in Quark’s together?”

      “Having lunch together is not the same as—” Kira sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “You’re sure they’re together?”

      “Well, I wasn’t there _personally_ , but I heard they had an altercation in Quark’s last night. And, well, you know Cardassians—arguing is practically foreplay.” 

      “ _That’s_ what you’re basing this off of? They argue all the time!”

      “Oh, don’t worry,” Jadzia said, a mischievous glint in her eyes, “there’s more. I stopped by Quark’s when my shift ended. Leeta told me that Garak and Julian had argued, and that they’d left about an hour before—so, naturally, I decided to check on Julian.”

       “Oh no.”

      “Oh yes. When I arrived at his quarters, there was a solid minute of rustling before he answered the door. He was clearly flustered and Garak was behind him, glaring at me.”

       Kira’s eyes were wide. “What did you do?”

      “I asked if I was interrupting something—Julian said ‘yes’, Garak said ‘no,’ and that he was ‘actually just leaving.’” Jadzia covered her mouth with her hand, stifling a laugh. “This morning I asked him what he’d been doing in Julian’s quarters and he insisted they were ‘playing a thrilling game of three-dimensional chess.’”

      Kira groaned. “Please, spare me the details. I do _not_ want to know.”

      Jadzia smiled, turning back to the console. “Suit yourself.”

      They sat in silence for the next few minutes; Jadzia kept smiling and Kira didn’t ask. She was craving a cup of Tarkalean tea, but knew she wouldn’t be able to finish it before they reached the Idran system. The replicator was on the fritz, so all liquids ended up scalding hot—an issue they weren’t aware of until they were already en route. She would have gone back for repairs if Jadzia hadn’t been so adamant that they continue: _In the centuries I’ve been alive_ , she’d said, _I’ve never seen anything like this_. Captain Sisko’s briefing had been—well, brief—and Kira was having a hard time wrapping her mind around the mission. How does a planet as large as Idran II just disappear?

      “I’m picking up something off the starboard bow,” Jadzia said, breaking Kira’s reverie. “It’s massive, but I’m not getting a visual.”

       Kira frowned. “What do you think it is?”

      “Well, it’s very dense and not very bright. It might be a neutron star, but it’s probably a black hole.”

       “A black hole?”

      Jadzia nodded, studying the console. “It’s unlikely, but maybe the black hole—”

       “—is what destroyed Idran II,” Kira finished. “Only one way to find out.”

       “Adjusting course, heading oh-seven-eight mark three.”

       Kira watched the stars shift on the viewscreen. She’d never seen a black hole up close, but she knew what to look for; she searched the stars for perturbations, for light bent by the object’s gravity. “If this black hole destroyed Idran II, that means it must have passed through the system a few days ago.”

      “If so, it should still be moving,” Jadzia said. “Although if it was in the system long enough to consume Idran II, I don’t see how it would have escaped the star’s gravity.”

      “Maybe it didn't consume Idran II,” Kira suggested. “Maybe it just knocked it out of orbit.”

      “It’s not impossible, but Federation scientists haven’t spotted it yet. A gas giant is hard to miss, even it’s rogue.”  She glanced up at the viewscreen. “We’ve got visual. It’s moving, but slowly.”

       Kira’s eyes brightened. “I see it.”  

      The starlight was warped, reflected, bent into arcs around the object. It looked like the fabric of space had been pushed aside, crumpled, to reveal the void within; it was the size of a dime, barely visible against the scintillating backdrop of stars.

      “It’s not moving fast enough,” Jadzia said. “And it’s moving in the wrong direction— _towards_ the Idran system.”

      Kira squinted at the viewscreen. There was something near the black hole, something hardly perceptible; it was tinged blue and seemed to reflect the light of the surrounding stars. “Magnify,” she said, and the object enlarged.

      “What is _that_?” Jadzia exclaimed.

      “No idea. Could it be a starship?”

      “Well, it’s certainly large enough. It’s larger than any ship I’ve ever seen.”

       The object was beginning to drift behind the black hole, partially obscuring it. “Try hailing them,” Kira said.

        A moment passed. “No response.”

       “We need to get closer. See if we can get a tractor beam on them.”

        Jadzia nodded. “Taking her in slowly. Decreasing orbit to point two-five AU.”

        The black hole swelled to fill the viewscreen. It was impossibly dark, save for the ring of blue gas around its equator—whatever was orbiting it had disappeared on the other side.

         “Interesting,” Jadzia said. “The spectrum of the gas matches Idran II’s atmosphere.”

         Kira glanced at the console, at Jadzia, and back again. “But the black hole is moving in the wrong direction.”  

         “I know that,” Jadzia replied. “It could be a coincidence, but I doubt it. Maybe the black hole collided with something else so its direction reversed?”

         “Must have been some collision.” Kira racked her brain for alternative theories, but none came to mind. It all seemed terribly unlikely—too many extraordinary coincidences, too many unknown variables. She sighed, studying the viewscreen. “The ship hasn’t come around. Let’s try pulling alongside it.”

        “Decreasing orbit to point one-five AU. Full thrusters.”

         Now all they could see was a flat black, a void without stars. The trail of blue was disappearing inside the event horizon, but more of it seemed to be coming from…somewhere.

      “There she is,” Kira said, as the edge of the ship drifted into view.

      “Tractor beam ready.”

       Kira paused as the object filled the screen; it was a remarkably unusual ship. It was also enormous, even larger than it had looked from their high orbit—she wasn’t sure if the runabout’s tractor beam would be enough to hold it.

        “We’ll need the _Defiant_ for this,” Jadzia mused aloud.

        “Agreed. Let’s head back to the station. Setting course—”

         “Wait.” Jadzia reached out to stop Kira’s hand. “It’ll be gone by the time we get back. It’s orbiting too close. Do you see how slowly it’s moving?”

         Kira nodded, withdrawing from the console.

         “The gravity will tear it apart in a matter of minutes. There’s nothing we can do.”

         Kira crossed her arms, watching the doomed ship glide listlessly by; it was almost fully visible now, covering the upper half of the black hole. Its structure seemed oddly fishlike—long translucent structures hung limp from every surface, and there was a bizarre scale-like quality to its hull. The thing reflected the stars so well, it was practically invisible. If it weren’t in front of a black hole she never would have noticed it in the first place.

        “Major,” Jadzia whispered, a sudden urgency in her tone. “That’s not a ship.”

        “What do you mean it’s not a ship?”

        “It’s organic.” Her eyes were wide and fixed on the console. “It’s alive. Or at least it _was_ alive.”

        As the last of the creature slid into view, Kira saw where the gas was coming from—it was leaking from four gaping slits in the front of the thing, and from an unfathomably large orifice beneath. It looked like a mouth, a mouth large enough to swallow Bajor a hundred times over. “Prophets help us,” she whispered. “It _ate_ Idran II.”

        The corpse was slowing, unraveling as it sank lower in its orbit; the black hole was ripping its tail apart, atom by atom. It looked distorted and awful and strange—the thing stretched to grotesque lengths as it approached the event horizon.

        “Major,” Jadzia said, voice shaking slightly. “We’ve got company.”  

        She adjusted the viewscreen to minimum magnification. It looked like three ripples in space were approaching the port side of the runabout; on closer inspection Kira could see streams of gas preceding them. “There’s more of them,” she said, and as she spoke they changed—shifting from near-invisibility to a stark black. These creatures were even larger than the first: bodies millions of kilometers in length with membranous structures twice as long. The colossal mouths were shut tight and the membranes lay perfectly flat; v-shaped slits narrowed as they approached the black hole, concentrating the outpour of gas. They slipped into orbit as reddish clouds flooded the viewscreen.

      “Incredible,” Jadzia said. “They must use the planets they eat as fuel to move through space.”

      Kira watched in wonder as the gas dissipated, suddenly glad they hadn’t gone back to fix the replicator. The creatures were gathered around the black hole—the largest directly in front of it, the other two at the sides. In a flurry of motion they unfurled their vast membranes, doubling their already spectacular size. Jadzia gasped, covering her mouth with one hand.

       “What do you think they’re doing?” Kira asked, enthralled by the peculiar motion. They were shifting from translucent to black and back again, membranes flaring and flattening in turn. The black hole’s gravity made their movements seem slow and strange, but there was something beautiful in the languorous undulation of their bodies.

      “They’re mourning,” Jadzia said, eyes brimming with tears. “They have to be.”

       The corpse of the dead creature was almost gone now, a greyish streak of distorted matter on the surface of the black hole. As it faded from view the creatures slowed and eventually stopped, their skin black and their membranes erect. They began to move after a minute of stillness, so slowly at first it was imperceptible.

       “How are they doing that?” Kira asked. “They’re breaking orbit, but they aren’t using gas.”

       Jadzia stared for a moment before she realized. “Solar sails,” she said. “The membranes are solar sails.”

       Kira leaned back as if to steady herself, eyes wide in astonishment. “Like ancient Bajoran ships,” she whispered. The creatures were moving faster now, every membrane stretched to the fullest extent to better collect starlight. They looked to be made entirely of mirrors—Kira swore she saw the runabout reflected on their backs. In only five minutes’ time they had vanished from view, their bodies dissolved into the vast expanse of stars.

       The runabout was silent save for the quiet hum of the warp drive. They sat in the stillness for a while, staring expectantly at the viewscreen, but no more creatures came to mourn. “We should head back,” Kira said at last.

      Jadzia nodded, wiping her eyes. “Laying in a course for the wormhole. We’ve got one hell of a story to tell Benjamin.”

       Kira stole one last look in the direction of the vanished creatures. “You’ve got that right.”

* * *

Jadzia sipped her raktajino, listening to the dull hum of conversation in Quark’s. It had been a day since her mission to Idran II, although a few days had passed on the station—the black hole’s gravity slowed time when they were near it, which was to be expected of an object so massive. She had finished writing the mission report an hour ago, and wouldn’t be on duty for another ten minutes. Her thoughts kept returning to the creatures, and to the science vessel dispatched to study them; she half wished she could be on that ship, following the massive cosmozoans through the galaxy, but she loved the station too much to leave. Sighing, she wrapped her hands around her cup of coffee.

      “Why the long face?”

      Jadzia brightened, turning towards the voice. “Julian!”

      The doctor smiled, taking the seat across from her. “No, really. I just finished reading your report. I’d be ecstatic if I’d seen what you’d seen. It sounds incredible.”

      “Oh it was. More than words can express, I just…” She raised her hands, searching for the right word. “I _miss_ them, I suppose.”

      “Well, I’m sure you’ll see them again sometime,” Julian said. “The Gamma quadrant’s probably crawling with them, along with thousands of other life forms we’ve yet to discover.”

      Jadzia bit her lip. “I guess you’re right. It was just overwhelming, watching them grieve. The whole ritual felt remarkably intimate.” She downed the rest of her raktajino, folding her hands in front of the cup. “But enough about the mission. How are things with Garak?”

      Julian coughed into his Tarkalean tea. “Well,” he said, recovering himself, “you know Garak. He doesn’t like his personal affairs to be common knowledge, and, well…”

      “It’s hard to keep secrets on this station.”

      “Exactly.” Julian rubbed his face with one hand, sighing. “You didn’t tell anyone, did you?”

        Jadzia shrugged innocently. “I may have mentioned something to Major Kira, but—”

      “Kira?” Julian groaned, his other hand joining the first. “She’s going to tell the Chief.”

      “You mean you haven’t told the Chief? I thought you two were best friends.”

      “Yeah, well,” His hands fell to the table. “The Chief isn’t overly fond of Garak.”

      “No one is overly fond of Garak,” Jadzia pointed out. “Present company excluded.”

      “I know that, it’s just…” He sighed again, visibly distressed.

      Jadzia placed her hand on top his. “Listen,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Chief O’Brien is your friend, and so am I. Your friends aren’t going to abandon you over something as petty as your choice of romantic partner.”

      Julian managed a smile. “I know. It’s all just happening so fast.”

      Jadzia squeezed his hand reassuringly. “It always does.” 

      The breakfast crowd was beginning to fill the bar, increasing the volume to a dull roar. Jadzia placed her empty cup on the tray of a passing waitress, rising to her feet. “Well, I’d better get going.”

      “Me too,” Julian said. He winced as he stood, rolling his shoulder in apparent discomfort.

      Jadzia raised an eyebrow. “Another thrilling game of three dimensional chess?”

      “I beg your pardon?”

      She shook her head, biting back laughter. “Never mind.”

 


End file.
